During the 2018 Grammys, highly acclaimed singer-songwriter, Ed Sheeran was awarded best pop solo performance for “Shape of You”. After Sheeran’s win there was much controversy that another nominee, Kesha, should have received the Grammy for her latest song,“Praying.” Kesha’s fans thought this due to her song being an ode to sexual assault or abuse survivors as well as the fact that she spoke out about an issue within the industry. This leads the song and listeners to see that “Praying” has more meaning than “Shape of You”.

Another suspicion in this category was that Ed Sheeran was the only male out of four females to win the Grammy. He was nominated against P!nk, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson,and Kesha who are all very powerful singers. Some even say they produce better songs than their male competitor. Still, the men have been receiving awards that some people would say the women deserved.

“Four strong female singers with crazy powerful vocals and the award goes to Ed Sheeran.” Timothy Groninger tweeted. “Ed Sheeran is the definition of boring. This is not right at all.”

When listening to “Shape of You” the music has no overall moral lesson. On the other hand, listeners can sense Kesha poured her heart into her song, “Praying”. Especially, since Kesha had experienced sexual harassment from her old coworker, Dr. Luke, the singer later filed a civil suit against the former coworker and had won. This proves that her fans do have a point that Kesha’s song should have been awarded rather that “Shape of You” , which is about a clubbing experience.

“Lady Gaga wrote “Million Reasons” in a healing process to recover from a severe heartbreak. Kesha wrote Praying after being through her literal worst nightmare. Ed Sheeran wrote Shape Of You about a club girl,” Monster Reactions , an enraged fan wrote (on twitter). “Congratulations Recording Academy. Thank you for this.”

This particular Grammy category in past years has been mainly all male nominees. In 2018 that has changed with four female competitors, but the male still comes out with the award. Ed Sheeran was not at the show to accept the award, while all the other nominees were ready to accept their Grammy with their speech in hand.

“Lol Ed Sheeran the one dude in a category with 4 iconic women and he wins and doesn’t show up.” Luke O’Neil, tweeted “Music industry in a nutshell.”

During 2018, it has been brought to the public’s attention that many females in the music and movie industry have undergone traumatic experiences. Kesha, being one of them, is apart of the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements. It is believed that we have changed and have noticed women deserve more recognition. This seems to be false because men are still receiving awards that females deserve. People can see there is clearly no gender equality in the music industry.

“I guess it’s a good thing Kesha didn’t win over Ed Sheeran, since the music industry doesn’t seem to care about examining its abuses of power,” Ira Madison III said on twitter.